trust
by abaddons
Summary: four times rory waits for amy, and one time he doesn't. -for percychased {gge2014}


a/n: posted on an alt.

for the wonderful percychased in the gift-giving extravaganza 2014! i know it's rubbish, but i hope it's a decent fic xx

* * *

:age 7

He's always first to the doors before the other boys; light on his feet, that's what they call 'im, _Rory the fox _- or, conversely, _Rory the ferret _'cause that's what he really is, just some quick, skinny animal with a dash of luck, nowhere near as loud or brash or _witty _as a fox. Rory, who curls up beside the wire fence at lunchtime and sits there with knobby knees and a pasty, Rory who's his Mum's boy, Rory the tiny shadow, thin and quavering beside the bigger kids with their bull-throated laughter and their bullish way of handling him, careless beatings and careless words - _shadow._

And he waits for the teacher like one, too, patient and frowning and pinch-faced. _Weasel_.

Amy is up the stairs in a flash, and suddenly she's beside him, smiling and framed by autumn locks; _Amy Pond_, a name that makes his knees weak and his mouth dry. Mrs. Farnsworth, the schoolmistress, opens the doors and he keeps it open for Amy like a good gentleman should, staring at his shoes the entire time and thinking _Amy Amy Amy_, over and over like the prayers in church.

She beams at him. "Thank you, Rory."

Rory stands a little bit taller for the rest of the day, feeling a bit less _ferrety _and prouder, larger, a lion.

x

:age 15

"I'm sorry."

Her hair falls over shoulder, a curl of fire, as she pushes away from him and sits, legs tucked, on his bed. He would be embarrassed in any other situation - the usual trappings of a teenage boy - but her hand is in his and he can smell her perfume (Chanel) and every part of him feels like it will burst from the strain of being so close to Amy.

"Is it me?" he blurts, fumbling. "Do I have bad breath, or do I smell, or is-"

"Rory. " A half-grin makes her lips rise, a rose-colored crescent. "It's not you, it's nothing, honestly, I'm just..."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"It's all just so sudden, you know? I mean, it's only our, what, our third date? And I'm, well, I'm kind of new to this whole kissing thing." Looking sheepish, Amy gives him a pat on the shoulder, trying to assure him that _it's not your fault, Rory, it's mine_ but it's like he's crumbling into tiny bits of sand.

Just-

love.

"I like you, I really do. Might actually like you more than that, even," and at this, Rory perks up and Amy lets out a shaky laugh. "Give me some time, alright? Can you do that for me, huh?"

"Of course, yes, sure, take as long as you need." He swallows. "I'll wait."

Amy looks grateful. "Thanks, Ror." Lightly, she pecks him on the cheek and swings off the ledge, her bare legs milky white and every undulation beautifully visible in that motion alone. On the porch, she lingers, fidgeting. "See you at school tomorrow?"

"Er, yeah. Yeah, see ya later."

"It's been a great night."

He's burning up on the inside from her lips.

x

:age 23

The hospital is roiling by the time he and Amy get there, accompanied by the Doctor. There's patients everywhere, orderlies trying to keep the peace, an alien on the loose - he has never been more afraid or bewildered his entire life, there's so much _disorder _and Amy, flitting among them like a sylph, the Doctor in the lead and pointing his device at everything that catches his fancy-

His heart is going to stop, at this rate, and he'll just collapse, a heap of rags, everything they thought he was-

No.

(shut up shut up)

(quiet)

(calm down)

There.

She'd been in such a rush, dragging him from his spot in the park he hadn't had a chance to catch his breath. "What's happening?" he'd asked her, over and over again as she fussed with his cell phone and the Doctor lingered, a spot of unusually loud white noise. "Amy, please, can you tell me-"

"Rory, this is-" Amy breathed heavily, flustered. "Look, I'll tell you everything if we get out of this alive, but 'till then, you've gotta trust me on this one, Ror. I can't explain it fast enough, and dammit, _we're running out of time_."

"Fine," he said.

Look where they are now. Knee-deep in rubble, a giant eye floating above the ward-

_But you trust her. You trust her enough._

"I do."

_Then keep your mouth closed and let this play out._

Rory does.

x

:age . . .

Gates closing, the cosmos itself whirling and screaming as it is torn apart-

He wades through the wreckage and finds only the prison and the Doctor watching it all, a hellish observer, weary from battle. Palms pressed against the Pandorica, he stifles a cry. Amy is in there.

"Trust in her, Rory," the Doctor had spoken. "Guard her. Help her make the right choice. Help stop this from happening.

"Be her protector. See her through storm and turmoil. You are not a man anymore. You are the Pandorica's Centurion.

"You are her hope."

Eyes filled with an unreachable sadness, the Doctor ran his hands over the runes, the alien carvings etched into the prison's dimensions. _It should have been you, not her, anyone but her_, he wants to scream.

"I can hold on until she wakes up. Until she reaches the point when this started."

"Thousands of years, Rory." The Time Lord is pacing now, furious. "Millennia of absolute consciousness. You won't be able to sleep. You won't even be able to die. It would drive a man _insane_."

"But I'm not a man, am I?" Rory chuckles. "I'm the Centurion."

"That you are." The Doctor's footsteps start to fade, the chill seeping further into him. "Goodbye, Rory Williams."

"Goodbye."

So he begins to count. And he can feel her presence, her peculiar warmth, through the years and the centuries lost across seas of battle and revolution, as the core of his being cries out in anguish and begs to be released; her thoughts, unspooling from the chamber within and clinging to him, easing him in his vigil.

_I love you._

x

:age 0

Too late, he tries to make the leap.

A stone finger, impossibly _alive_, touches his arm, and he can feel the darkness behind it, cruelty like a knife blade sinking into his flesh, a wicked intelligence so fathomless and distant his body rebels at the contact. He knows; hasn't he faced them before, legions of sharp-faced angels with fangs and deadly hands, moving between them like a silent gale? Only

(_this this this_)

it is him, now, that is caught in its web. As the vortex encroaches, preparing to spin him away into another time, seconds dilate into hours. He is struck by the sight of her, his wife, face frozen in a wordless expression of shock. Behind her, the TARDIS, and the Doctor and River as still as Amy is.

Strength is fleeting, rolling away from him in waves, the momentary pause hastening.

Rory smiles.

_Don't come with me, not here, not where I'm going._

_Don't want to see you hurt_-

x

Then he is gone.


End file.
